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Hagiography

Eulalia was a devout Christian virgin, aged 12–14, whose mother
sequestered her in the countryside in AD 304 because all citizens
were required to avow faith in the Roman gods. Eulalia ran
away to the law court of the governor Dacian at Emerita, professed
herself a Christian, insulted the pagan gods and emperor Maximian,
and challenged the authorities to martyr her. The judge's attempts
at flattery and bribery failed. According to
the Spanish-Roman poet Prudentius of the fifth century, who devoted
book 3 of his Peristephanon ("About martyrs") to
Eulalia, she said:

She was then stripped by the soldiers, tortured with hooks and torches, and burnt at the stake, suffocating from smoke
inhalation. She taunted her torturers all the while,[4] and as
she expired a dove flew out of her mouth. This frightened
away the soldiers and allowed a miraculous snow to cover her nakedness, its
whiteness indicating her sainthood.

A shrine over her tomb was soon erected. Veneration of
Eulalia was already popular with Christians by AD 350;[2]
Prudentius' poem increased her fame[5]
and relics from her were
distributed through Iberia. Bishop Fidelis of Mérida
rebuilt a basilica in her
honor around AD 560.[2][6] Her
shrine was the most popular in Visigothic Spain.[5]
In c. 780 her body was transferred to Oviedo by King Silo. It lies in a coffin of Arab
silver donated by Afonso VI in 1075. In 1639, she was made patron saint of
Oviedo.[7] She
appears in Thieleman J. van Braght, Martyrs Mirror: An account
of Those who Suffered in the Fourth Century (1660).[8]

Julia of
Mérida

Often linked with Eulalia is Saint Julia of Mérida, as in the
double dedication to Saints Eulalia and Julia. Julia is also said
to have been a young girl martyred at Mérida in 304, in the same
persecution by Diocletian, and her feast day is also celebrated on
10 December.[9]